DT Video: QinetiQ's Blackfish Drone Boat

3 Jul 2011

Hope you're all having a great and long Independence Day weekend. Get outside, have fun, watch fireworks and do something cool like ride a real boat as opposed to this unmanned one created by Britain's now-privately run version of DARPA known as QinetiQ.

The above video shows QinetiQ North America's Blackfish unmanned surface vehicle originally designed to identify underwater divers who may threaten a ship, harbor or naval facility using sonar. The company is now pitching the boats as semi-autonoumous harbor surveilance tools. In theory, you would have one or several Blackfish running pre-programmed routes around a harbor a short-based sensor operator when they spot something unusual.

QinetiQ NA's Rob Knochenhauer says the boats would be useful in peacetime missions like scouting out hazardous areas after a natural disaster like the waters around the nuclear plants damaged during this spring's earthquake and tsunami in Japan.